So what's the argument here? We shouldn't take any measures to try and keep rents within reach for city residents, because arson is a natural, unavoidable consequence?
No, it's that when you abandon healthy markets and try to impose artificial constraints that fly in the face of basic economics you wind up with horribly perverse incentive structures. Can someone find that article about the landlord who took a 2-family house, knocked down the 2nd unit and then was able to increase rent on the remaining unit 4x?
This seems to be a horrible example. Price is a message in the face of reality. You can democratically agree to ignore the message certainly but you have to be prepared to counter some of the results that follow. They may be containable or they may not. Are there great examples of price control which have proved successful in the long run?
